Bypaths of Kansas History - May 1943

HORSES VS. THE UNION PACIFIC

The Kansas Daily Commonwealth, Topeka, April 2, 1873.
A lively race took place on the 28th inst. between a soldier on horseback from Fort Harker and the express train on the K. P. [now the Union Pacific] railroad. The horse gained about twenty-five yards in a half mile. It was better time than was ever made in Kansas. Half a mile made in fifty seconds by a plug.

From the Junction City Union, June 10, 1876.

A joke is told of a conductor on one of the K. P. freight trains. It appears that when his train reached Solomon City he got off, but remained too long, and the engineer left him. When the train arrived at Abilene a cloud of dust appeared moving rapidly over the prairie, and pretty soon in came the conductor behind a splendid span of horses. He had actually made better time than the train.

TROUBLES OF THE DRUMMER IN DODGE CITY

From the Dodge City Times, March 24, 1877.

J. B. McManahan, a St. Joe cigar runner, was here this week, and while his cigars were Spread out for the "boys" to inspect, Several boxes vanished. J. B. M.'s suspicions were excited against Luke McGlue, and, taking Constable McGoodwin, he went through every saloon and business house in the city. Everybody was Smoking and praising the cigars Luke McGlue had given them, but Luke could not be found.

SAILING VIA THE UNION PACIFIC

From The Clay County Dispatch, Clay Center, November 29, 1877.

A wind-power hand car, says the Junction City Union, Sixteen feet in length, is now sailing on the Kansas Pacific. The sail is fifteen feet high, twelve feet wide at the bottom, ten at the top. It is controlled precisely as the sail of a sail boat, and by its means the car is always easily propelled except when the wind is "dead ahead." With a good wind a speed of twenty-five miles an hour can be easily attained.

(217)

Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains

The latest in scholarship on Kansas history, published quarterly since 1978 by the Kansas Historical Foundation.